I called my local sewing store in southeastern PA this afternoon (the same place that I purchased my wife's PE Design software, Deco 650, CD's and classes) and inquired about the upgrade for the PE Design software that included the USB cardwriter. I bought her a new computer for Christmas and have never been able to get the old cardwriter to work on it so I figured I'd bite the bullet and upgrade to 5.0. So, after being informed that they did indeed have the upgrade, and it was in stock I inquired about the price. I was told that Brother was no longer letting its distributors quote pricing over the phone, not even retail prices. That's right, you have to drive to the store if you want the price, no emails, no faxes. I thought someone at that place HAD TO be pulling my leg, so I called Brother Corporate in Bridgewater, NJ and it turns out that this is indeed the case, under the new contract, no price quotes over the phone. I was told that if I disagreed with the policy I could write a letter. It was explained to me that, "imagine you picked up the phone and called store A and got a price of $200 and then called store B and got a price of $400, you would buy from store A. Then the owner of store B would call Brother complaining that store A was selling it cheaper." (Isn't that called competition?)
Now, I'm in the purchasing department for a manufacturing company and I CANNOT imagine calling one of my vendors and having them tell me, "sure we have it but, y'know, I'm not going to tell you how much it costs, you're going to have to drive over here and THEN I'll tell you".
In this case, I ended up driving the 45 minutes to the store and spoke to the woman in person whom I had spoken earlier to on the phone and was told that the Brother policy was to protect stores from internet companies that undercut their pricing.
I am absolutely disgusted that Brother would implement a policy that in effect withholds information from their customers in hopes that they will go to a store and pay more than they should. I wasted 3 hours between the store and Brother HQ screwing around. The result of Brother policy, I for one will never buy another Brother product (sewing related or not) and will never patronize the store again either. Congratulations, you both lost a customer.
Did Amazon put Barnes & Noble out of business? No. Walden? No. My favorite corner news agency/bookstore with the great coffee? No. Evolve or perish, your distribution should be proud to quote its pricing and if it's higher than the internet companies let them stand behind their organizations and explain why. If it's the support, then sell it, if it's the fact that you can bring it in for help, then sell it, if it's the personal relationships then sell it that way. If the customer decides to buy it online cheaper then so be it, caveat emptor. HOWEVER, don't try to force the customer's hand, or they'll go away like I did.
Scott